State E-Mails Skeptical of Willets Point Project by Fernanda Santos - NYTimes.com

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The $3 billion development of Willets Point would replace junkyards and car repair shops. Robert Bennett- NY Times

Even as the Bloomberg administration promotes the $3 billion development of Willets Point in Queens as one of its signature projects, state officials whose approval is needed have privately raised concerns over highway ramps crucial to the proposal and have questioned whether the development will ever get off the ground.

State officials have repeatedly expressed frustration with the city’s inability to provide reliable information and the pressure it was placing on them to expedite their analysis, according to a review of hundreds of e-mails involving the Willets Point project that were provided to The New York Times by an opponent of the project.

Michael Bergmann, a structural engineer for the State Department of Transportation who was part of the team reviewing the city’s application, wrote to the department’s regional director and other colleagues on Dec. 28: “Unless the preparers of this report start accepting the idea that it is seriously flawed, we are going nowhere.”

About a month later, after pointing out a mistake in a document that put the development’s completion date as 2107 instead of 2017, Peter King, a project manager for the state, wrote to a colleague, “Perhaps that reference to 2107 may have been closer to the truth than anyone realizes.”

By that point, the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which was overseeing the project, was pushing state officials to finish their work so that the ramps, which would connect Willets Point to the Van Wyck Expressway, could move on to the final stage of approval by the Federal Highway Administration.

Several months later, state officials did not seem very optimistic about the project’s future.

“If I were a betting man, I’d start dropping the odds regarding success for E.D.C. on this project,” Mr. King said in an e-mail to a state transportation analyst on May 11. “Resistance seems to be building.”

He was reacting in part to a group of business and property owners in Willets Point who had organized an effort to try to derail the project. As part of that, the opponents had filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the State Transportation Department seeking copies of all communications on the plan, hoping to pry open a behind-the-scenes bureaucratic process the public often knows very little about.

They also were hoping the e-mails would provide fodder for their campaign. The messages — about 200 from May 2007 to May 2010, among State Transportation Department staff members, federal highway officials, city officials and private consultants — show the state’s concern about the safety, design and traffic impact of the ramps.

A spokesman for the development corporation, David Lombino, said those concerns were being addressed in a revised plan that the city intended to submit to the state by the end of the year. Mr. Lombino conceded, however, that the ramps’ approval “has been more time-consuming than originally planned.”

The e-mails show state regulators raising various concerns. Do traffic projections account for simultaneous events at Citi Field stadium next to the development site and the nearby Billie Jean King National Tennis Center after Willets Point is fully occupied? Could one of the exit curves be too tight? Might the cluster of exits and merges confuse drivers and lead to accidents?
Such back and forth among different government agencies working together on a specific matter is certainly not uncommon — particularly on large, ambitious projects like Willets Point, which envisions the construction of 5,500 apartments, office buildings, retail stores and a hotel, replacing the auto repair shops, factories and junkyards that have operated there for decades.

What seems unusual is the annoyance state regulators expressed with the work of the consultants hired by the city to work on the ramps’ design. The consultants submitted numerous written responses and clarifications to questions and sat with the regulators in several meetings, but still failed to satisfy them, the messages show.

“We have reviewed this whole package several times, and we keep seeing the same things,” Mr. Bergmann wrote to Mr. King and Tracy Sayegh Gabriel, a vice president at the development corporation, on Dec. 30. “Clarification is not our problem — we understand the design concepts. There are several key elements in the draft report that we are not willing to accept.”

Mr. Lombino said disagreements were a part of the process, adding, “We make proposals and then work closely with our counterpart agencies and regulators, revising those proposals to produce the best project possible.”

As part of the approval process for the project, the city is preparing an assessment of the ramps’ impact on the environment, which will be the subject of a public hearing next month. The assessment has to be reviewed by state transportation officials and the federal highway agency, which can approve it or request a more extensive review, an outcome that would further delay the project.

The ramps must be built before the city can exercise its eminent domain power to take any land at Willets Point from owners who are unwilling to sell. Many of the owners of larger properties there have already agreed to sell.

Mr. Lombino said the city controlled nearly 80 percent of the land in the area that would be the first phase of the development, on the southern tip of the 60-acre site, which is roughly bordered by Roosevelt Avenue, 126th Street and the Van Wyck Expressway.

But about 20 owners of land and businesses are resisting and have filed a motion in State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeking to force the city to redo its environmental review of the entire project.

They have hired a lobbyist who helped defeat Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plans to build a mall at the old Kingsbridge armory in the Bronx, and an environmental lawyer and traffic engineer who played key roles in the fight against Westway, an underground highway proposed along the West Side of Manhattan.

“We’re looking for any way that we can to stop the project,” said Jerry Antonacci, whose waste transfer company, Crown Container, has been in Willets Point since 1959.

New York City Paid to Lobby Itself, Group Says by Ray Rivera - NYTimes.com

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Gerald Antonacci, the leader of the Willets Point United community group, seeks an inquiry into the lobbying efforts of another group. John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

In late 2006, as the Bloomberg administration girded for what promised to be a bruising rezoning fight over the Willets Point section of Queens, it enlisted the help of Claire Shulman, the former Queens borough president.

At a meeting in City Hall that December, Ms. Shulman and Daniel L. Doctoroff, then a deputy mayor, agreed to form a nonprofit group with city and private money. Its primary purpose, Ms. Shulman said, would be to lobby on behalf of the mayor’s plan to turn the long-neglected area near the New York Mets stadium into a thriving hub of shops, hotels, condominiums and a convention center.

The group, the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corporation, eventually received hundreds of thousands of dollars in public and private money, and spent much of it to help push through the plan through the City Council.

It hired the Parkside Group, one of the city’s best-known lobbying firms. It brought in the Glover Park Group, the powerful political consulting firm, to bolster its media campaign. And Ms. Shulman, as the organization’s president, made countless personal appeals, promising to meet with every member of the City Council as it prepared to vote on the plan last fall.

“That was the whole idea,” Ms. Shulman said in an interview. “The idea I had with Dan Doctoroff was that we would help the city do what the mayor wanted, to clear Willets Point and develop it in the best interest of the city, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.” In other words, Ms. Shulman added, “We lobbied the city for the city.”

Local development corporations like Ms. Shulman’s have been around for decades. Ranging from tiny neighborhood groups to giant quasi-public agencies like the city’s Economic Development Corporation, these loosely regulated organizations are designed to encourage businesses and industry to invest in local areas.

But one thing they are not supposed to do is lobby.

State law says local development corporations are not permitted to “influence legislation by propaganda or otherwise.” Ms. Shulman’s group eventually reported spending $450,000, roughly half its total budget, on lobbying, city records show.

Half the group’s revenues came from the Economic Development Corporation, which is also barred from lobbying. The other half came from corporate sponsors, including the Mets organization, which has long eyed the property, and several developers and construction firms that are expected to vie for lucrative redevelopment contracts when the city puts out requests for proposals in coming months.

Last November, the City Council voted 42 to 2 in favor of the plan, which authorizes the city to use eminent domain to remove the various auto repair shops and salvage yards that occupy the 62-acre portion of Queens. A group of business owners is suing to stop the city.

The group, known as Willets Point United, has asked Andrew M. Cuomo, the state attorney general, to investigate the organization’s lobbying efforts.

“They knew what they were doing,” said Gerald Antonacci, the leader of Willets Point United and the president of Crown Container, one of the area’s more than 250 companies that will be required to move when construction begins. “This was all planned out. They knew she was hiring lobbyists. This wasn’t a mistake.”

The attorney general’s office is reviewing the complaint. In recent months, the office has been looking into lobbying by local development corporations, and has identified a “small but not insignificant set” of groups that appear to be improperly lobbying, said a person briefed on the attorney general’s initial review.

The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says that it never encouraged Ms. Shulman to lobby and that the $450,000 it gave to the group was not used for that purpose.

“The city regularly partners with local organizations that promote growth and economic development,” said David Lombino, a spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation. In the case of Ms. Shulman’s group, he added, “we are funding a scope of work that includes public outreach, organizing community support and proposing and advocating for area improvements.”

Andrew Brent, a Bloomberg spokesman, pointed to a letter Mr. Doctoroff sent Ms. Shulman three weeks after their first meeting. It outlined the goals of her group, including conducting and leading “outreach, public relations and marketing efforts” to support the proposed redevelopment in Willets Point, but it never mentioned lobbying elected officials.

Mr. Doctoroff, who left the administration at the end of 2007 to run the mayor’s financial news and data company, Bloomberg L.P., did not respond to requests for comment made through the company and the mayor’s office.

Ms. Shulman, borough president from 1986 to 2001, provides a starkly different account. “We hired lobbyists from the time we began, because we were told it was something we were supposed to be doing,” she said.

Ms. Shulman, an 83-year-old veteran of Queens politics, seemed a natural ally for the city. After retiring from office, she remained well regarded in the community and continued to serve on various boards. And she had long had her sights on Willets Point.

As borough president in the early 1990s, Ms. Shulman rejected as shortsighted a city economic development study that said development would flourish on its own if the city provided sewers and basic services to the area.

Instead, she proposed her own plan, which included a pavilion for international trade.

But like various redevelopment plans dating back to the era of Robert Moses, who unsuccessfully sought to turn the area into a park and parking lot for the 1964 World’s Fair, her vision went unrealized.

Her lobbying for this latest plan became an issue this year when the city clerk’s office, which regulates lobbyists, fined her group a record $59,090 for failing to register her activities with its office. But the issue of whether the group should have been lobbying at all went unaddressed.

Even now, Ms. Shulman is not sure her group did anything wrong.

In its 2007 federal tax returns, the group claimed it had spent no money on lobbying. The group has hired a lawyer to help it comply with all laws and regulations.

The border between what is legally acceptable advocacy of a position and what is illegally trying to influence legislation is often blurry. But critics of the Bloomberg administration’s aggressive and varied development ambitions say these neighborhood groups are increasingly crossing the line.

In a recent example, the Coney Island Development Corporation, essentially a subsidiary of the Economic Development Corporation, hired three buses to carry people to a hearing last month on the mayor’s proposal to revitalize 19 blocks of the Coney Island amusement district. Officials say the buses were open to those who favored or opposed the plan, but council members say it was clear that most riders were supporters.

“I don’t ever remember L.D.C.’s lobbying council members or elected officials the way they have been to promote Bloomberg projects,” said Councilman Tony Avella, a Queens Democrat who is chairman of the Council’s subcommittee on zoning and franchises and who is a candidate for mayor.

The Coney Island group also paid more than $182,000 to Yoswein New York, another of the city’s major lobbying firms, to help promote its efforts to help the mayor gain public approval for his redevelopment plan, records show. “We do public relations as well, and for this client we were hired to do marketing and public relations,” said Jamie Van Bramer, who handled the account for Yoswein. “We did no lobbying on this one at all.”

Likewise, the Glover Park Group, which received at least $30,000 from the Flushing Willets Point organization, said it focused on “press relations,” not lobbying. Harry Giannoulis, president of the Parkside Group, which lobbying records show got $125,000, said Ms. Shulman hired it to lobby, among other duties.

“We didn’t want to do anything improper,” Ms. Shulman said. “We have been working very hard to try to do something that is in the best interest of the city, and we did what we thought was correct.”

Willets Point United Hires NY State’s Top Eminent Domain Attorney

Fred Michael Rikon of the law firm Goldstein, Goldstein, Rikon and Gottlieb, a nationally renowned expert in eminent domain law, to represent them during the upcoming eminent domain battle with the City of New York.

Michael Rikon has been practicing law in New York since being admitted to the State Bar in 1969. Before forming the firm of Goldstein, Goldstein & Rikon in 1994, Mr. Rikon had a successful private practice, founded in 1980, specializing in condemnation law, real estate and litigation in the Court of Claims. From 1973 to 1980, Mr. Rikon served as a law clerk to the Honorable Albert A. Blinder of the New York State Court of Claims. Mr. Rikon began his law career as an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, a position he held from 1969 to 1973, where he was a senior trial attorney in the Condemnation Division.

Mr. Rikon also contributes to professional journals in subjects related to the practice of condemnation law. In 1973 and 1974, Mr. Rikon was a special consultant to the New York State Commission on Eminent Domain and assisted in drafting New York's Eminent Domain Procedure Law.

Goldstein, Goldstein, Rikon & Gottlieb, P.C. is a law firm which limits its practice to condemnation law.

“With Mr. Rikon at the helm, we feel confident about our future. He is familiar with the continued neglect the city has forced upon the Willets Point businesses and residents. He is also familiar with the city’s unfair and illegal rush to use eminent domain.”

On June 3, 2009, the City of New York announced that it would begin condemnation proceedings against the remaining property owners at Willets Point, despite the fact that only 2 acquisition deals have been made since the November 13, 2008 City Council vote that approved the Willets Point redevelopment project. The City Council made it clear that eminent domain was only to be used as a last resort.

Earlier this year, the City’s Economic Development Corporation made phone calls to many of the businesses and told them that negotiations were on hold until next year. Then earlier this month, these same property owners were notified that they would soon receive letters announcing a public hearing about the use of eminent domain – a signal that the City plans to use eminent domain to take the rest of the properties.

“The City promised that eminent domain would only be used to take property from ‘1 or 2 hold outs’ – which is a far cry from the 59 landowners, or 80% of those who are left ,” said Jake Bono, Spokesperson for Willets Point United.

“Thankfully, we have Mr. Rikon, who will vigorously represent us on all matters until we achieve victory. This will protect future generations from being subject to abusive New York City eminent domain practices.”

For up to date information about the Willets Point fight, please visit their blog: http://www.willetspoint.org.

You may also follow them on Twitter: WilletsPtUnited

Willets Point United Challenges City’s Environmental Review

FILES ARTICLE 78 AGAINST MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL AND CITY AGENCIES

(March 11, 2009) Twenty-two members of Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse filed an Article 78 petition yesterday with the NY State Supreme Court against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York City Council, the City Planning Commission and Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber challenging the environmental review that was completed by the City of New York.

The main points of the filing are as follows:

• Petitioners are challenging the Deputy Mayor’s Office appointing itself as the lead agency on the project. Under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) this office does not “have jurisdiction to fund, approve or directly undertake an action,” and therefore cannot be a lead agency.
• The Deputy Mayor’s Office failed to identify and report many of the environmental impacts it was required to under a SEQRA review, including impacts on traffic and highways, emergency response, the city’s water supply and the likelihood of plan approval by federal and state highway authorities.
• The plan takes private property without a public purpose. The current plan is simply a theoretical possibility and the Kelo decision stated that condemners must have a concrete plan in place and a “carefully formulated economic plan” in order to seize property.

Michael Gerrard, attorney for WP United, stated the following in the petition:

“Here, the Deputy Mayor’s Office has only its starry-eyed vision. The Deputy Mayor’s Office sets forth this vision in the first page of the FGEIS [Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement] executive summary: ‘The proposed Plan’s main goal is to transform a largely underutilized site with substandard conditions and substantial environmental degradation into a lively, mixed-use, sustainable community and regional destination.’ This might be a lofty aspiration, but aspirations alone cannot provide grounds for condemning -- and ruining -- the 61 acres of vital businesses in Willets Point.”

WP United President Jerry Antonacci said, “We are confident that the courts will dismiss the findings of the environmental review submitted by the Deputy Mayor’s office and that the City Council’s November 2008 vote authorizing the redevelopment will be rendered null and void.”

For up to date information about the Willets Point fight, please visit our blog: www.willetspoint.org.

Iron Triangle to City: Put Willets Point Money Toward Vital Services

Contact:

Jake Bono, Spokesperson, Willets Point United (917) 334-7926
Jerry Antonacci, President, Willets Point United (718) 446-7297

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IRON TRIANGLE TO CITY:

PUT WILLETS POINT MONEY TOWARD VITAL SERVICES

(Queens, NY, February 5, 2009) Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse is a coalition of Willets Point business and land owners opposed to the taking of private property for private gain. WP United believes that during this current fiscal crisis, the $400 million set aside by the City of New York for land acquisition at Willets Point could be put toward better use.

During his most recent budget announcement, Mayor Bloomberg stated that the City would take Draconian measures to drastically reduce vital services. Here is a partial list of proposed cuts:

Police cuts: $48.9 million
Library cuts: $20.1 million
Fire Dept cuts: $17.0 million
Senior Center cuts: $ 5.3 million
Child protection cuts: $15.5 million
Teacher cuts: $91.2 million
Ambulance cuts: $ 3.3 million
Jail cuts: $ 3.4 million
Foster care cuts: $12.8 million
Homeless service cuts: $ 5.1 million
Parks cuts: $ 5.6 million

This list alone amounts to $228 million.

Jerry Antonacci, President of Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse, stated, "The taxpayer money set aside for property acquisition at Willets Point could easily be redirected toward these agencies to prevent these cuts. There would also be enough left over to install a sanitary sewer system and fix the roads at the Iron Triangle and allow the property owners to stay, expand their businesses and let the area redevelop naturally."

Jake Bono, another business owner and member of the Willets Point group, agreed. "Why is there $400 million set aside to force business and property owners off their land while jobs for police, fire and teachers are being eliminated? Why in an economic downturn is the city spending money not only to destroy businesses and jobs, but to destroy the American dream of owning property? Government-abetted private land grabs were not what our founding fathers envisioned when they wrote The Constitution."

On November 13, 2008, the City Council approved a plan that would remove existing businesses from Willets Point and redevelop the 64-acre industrial site into a convention center, hotels, shops and housing to be built and owned by a private developer. The City has announced that it will use eminent domain to achieve possession, if necessary, and then turn the property over to the developer, who is yet to be chosen. Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse represents more than two dozen property owners who are fighting the City's plan to acquire their property.

Crowley Cites Democratic Gains in Queens by Jonathan P. Hicks - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

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It was something of a mutual admiration society on Thursday morning between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and United States Representative Joseph Crowley.

Representative Joseph Crowley is the Queens Democratic chairman. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

Mr. Crowley, who is also the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, was the speaker at the breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York. And Mr. Bloomberg made a last-minute addition to his schedule to appear at the event.

At first, Mr. Bloomberg focused his remarks on his support for the redevelopment of Willets Point, an industrial enclave near Shea Stadium in Queens. But then he turned his attention to Mr. Crowley.

The congressman, Mr. Bloomberg said, “always seems to be in the right side of issues,” adding that the “great opportunity” to develop Willets Point would not have been possible “without the help of Joe Crowley.”

Mr. Crowley, in turn, said that Mr. Bloomberg “has done a good job as mayor.”

“I think people are pleased with the job he has been doing,” Mr. Crowley added.

What does that bode for a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor seeking a third term? Would the Queens County Democratic organization be kindly disposed to supporting Mr. Bloomberg?

“We have a healthy respect for each other,” Mr. Crowley said in an interview after the breakfast. “He comes to me when there is an issue he believes I can help. We disagree on some things, too. But we have a good relationship. However, it’s much too soon to talk about what might happen next year.”

However, Mr. Crowley added that there are two longtime Democratic officials who have already committed to seeking the party’s nomination for mayor in 2009: Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., and United States Representative Anthony D. Weiner.

“There are two people out there already who I think can do the job and who are looking to run as Democrats,” Mr. Crowley said. “The mayor is a formidable candidate. But I don’t think anyone is unbeatable.”

Mr. Crowley added that he had not given any thought as to what might be involved in the legal maneuvers that would allow Mr. Bloomberg to run for re-election on the Democratic line.

The congressman did speak about the Democratic Party’s gains in Queens, pointing out that the longtime State Senator Frank Padavan, a Republican, was only narrowly ahead of the Democratic challenger, City Councilman James F. Gennaro, in the results from last week’s general election, with about 8,000 absentee and other paper ballots yet to be counted.

In addition, a City Council seat that had long been held by Republicans went Democratic in last week’s election. Councilman Anthony Como, one of three Republicans in the Council, was defeated by Elizabeth S. Crowley, a developer of educational programs for nonprofit agencies. She is also a cousin of the congressman’s.

“I think we’re doing a great job as a Democratic Party in Queens,” Mr. Crowley said. “If we’re able to win the Padavan seat, which I think we will, it will mean that every member of the Assembly, the City Council and the State Senate from Queens will be Democratic.”

Mr. Crowley added “we’ll no longer be viewed as the political stepchild.”

Two Queens Projects Ready to Move Forward by Daniel Massey - Crain's New York Business

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Following a major victory on a controversial plan to rezone 125th Street in Harlem, the Bloomberg administration is about to seek approval for two signature Queens redevelopment projects—a move sure to stir further debate.

The city intends to certify the Willets Point and Hunters Point South plans into the land-use process on Monday, setting the stage for a seven-month battle as the projects are scrutinized by the communities, the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

Willets Point business owners have been simmering since last May, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan that would displace them and remake the hardscrabble blocks near the Mets' new Citi Field. There, the city would build 5,500 housing units, a hotel, a convention center and 2.2 million square feet of office and retail space.

The Hunters Point project—which calls for 5,000 units of housing along the East River in Long Island City—has been less controversial, because it does not involve relocations. But since 60% of the residential units would be reserved for middle-income New Yorkers and the rest would be sold at market rates, the plan has drawn the ire of activists who say low-income Queens residents will be priced out.

The Bloomberg administration has already won approval for 80 rezonings, and last week's win on a key vote concerning the Harlem project means that another authorization could soon be on the way. But the mayor, whose time in office is winding down, is far from finished with an ambitious development agenda that also includes Coney Island, Moynihan Station and a two-block stretch of East 125th Street.


Local councilman opposed


The mayor's economic development team has decided to press forward on Willets Point, despite many unresolved issues. The 61-acre redevelopment had been scheduled for certification in February, but the city temporarily backed off when City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, withdrew his support. He remains opposed, saying he wants the administration to guarantee the inclusion of middle- and low-income housing units, require livable-wage jobs and agree not to use eminent domain to take over properties.

“They have now put a real short-term clock on this project,” says Mr. Monserrate. “And that clock begins to tick on Monday.”

The city's decision to kick-start the land review is sure to intensify the opposition, which will focus on the relocation of 275 Willets Point businesses and their nearly 2,000 workers. Earlier this month, business owners filed a lawsuit charging the city with intentionally neglecting Willets Point in order to make it easier to take property via eminent domain.

Another potential obstacle emerged Friday, when Queens Borough President Helen Marshall got an advance copy of the environmental impact statement. Ms. Marshall, who had been a staunch supporter of the project, was “very disappointed.” She says a plan for developing the land if negotiations with owners stall could eliminate the convention center and compromise the environmental remediation of the site.

The city's Economic Development Corp. has a large group assigned to the Willets Point project, including staffers who are working full-time on business relocation.

“Our intention is to compensate everyone fairly,” says President Seth Pinsky.

Business owners say the city has not provided them with viable relocation options.

“I don't intend to uproot and move and be put in the middle of nowhere,” says Danny Sambucci Jr., whose father opened Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage 57 years ago.

By law, to maintain the possibility of seizing property, the city will hold off on designating a developer until after the land-use process plays out.

The Hunters Point redevelopment has been less contentious, but the project does have its detractors.

“If the mayor wants to help our communities, he has to make affordable housing affordable to the people in that neighborhood,” says the Rev. Lancelot Waldron, president of Queens Congregations United for Action.

The bigger hurdle with this plan could be financing. The city can't issue bonds for residential developments because it isn't setting aside 20% of units for low-income families.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development applied for federal approval to create a nonprofit organization that would issue tax-free bonds to build middle-income housing, but a decision isn't expected for months.

COMMENTS? DMassey@crainsnewyork.com

Queens Next on Mike's Agenda - Contentious Willets, Hunters Pt. Projects Go to Land Review by Daniel Massey - Crain's New York Business

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Following a major victory on a controversial plan to rezone 125th Street in Harlem, the Bloomberg administration is about to seek approval for two signature Queens redevelopment projects—a move sure to stir further debate.

The city intends to certify the Willets Point and Hunters Point South plans into the land-use process on Monday, setting the stage for a seven-month battle as the projects are scrutinized by the communities, the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

Willets Point business owners have been simmering since last May, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan that would displace them and remake the hardscrabble blocks near the Mets' new Citi Field. There, the city would build 5,500 housing units, a hotel, a convention center and 2.2 million square feet of office and retail space.

The Hunters Point project—which calls for 5,000 units of housing along the East River in Long Island City—has been less controversial, because it does not involve relocations. But since 60% of the residential units would be reserved for middle-income New Yorkers and the rest would be sold at market rates, the plan has drawn the ire of activists who say low-income Queens residents will be priced out.

The Bloomberg administration has already won approval for 80 rezonings, and last week's win on a key vote concerning the Harlem project means that another authorization could soon be on the way. But the mayor, whose time in office is winding down, is far from finished with an ambitious development agenda that also includes Coney Island, Moynihan Station and a two-block stretch of East 125th Street.

Local councilman opposed

The mayor's economic development team has decided to press forward on Willets Point, despite many unresolved issues. The 61-acre redevelopment had been scheduled for certification in February, but the city temporarily backed off when City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, withdrew his support. He remains opposed, saying he wants the administration to guarantee the inclusion of middle- and low-income housing units, require livable-wage jobs and agree not to use eminent domain to take over properties.

“They have now put a real short-term clock on this project,” says Mr. Monserrate. “And that clock begins to tick on Monday.”

The city's decision to kick-start the land review is sure to intensify the opposition, which will focus on the relocation of 275 Willets Point businesses and their nearly 2,000 workers. Earlier this month, business owners filed a lawsuit charging the city with intentionally neglecting Willets Point in order to make it easier to take property via eminent domain.

Another potential obstacle emerged Friday, when Queens Borough President Helen Marshall got an advance copy of the environmental impact statement. Ms. Marshall, who had been a staunch supporter of the project, was “very disappointed.” She says a plan for developing the land if negotiations with owners stall could eliminate the convention center and compromise the environmental remediation of the site.

The city's Economic Development Corp. has a large group assigned to the Willets Point project, including staffers who are working full-time on business relocation.

“Our intention is to compensate everyone fairly,” says President Seth Pinsky.

Business owners say the city has not provided them with viable relocation options.

“I don't intend to uproot and move and be put in the middle of nowhere,” says Danny Sambucci Jr., whose father opened Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage 57 years ago.

By law, to maintain the possibility of seizing property, the city will hold off on designating a developer until after the land-use process plays out.

The Hunters Point redevelopment has been less contentious, but the project does have its detractors.

“If the mayor wants to help our communities, he has to make affordable housing affordable to the people in that neighborhood,” says the Rev. Lancelot Waldron, president of Queens Congregations United for Action.

The bigger hurdle with this plan could be financing. The city can't issue bonds for residential developments because it isn't setting aside 20% of units for low-income families.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development applied for federal approval to create a nonprofit organization that would issue tax-free bonds to build middle-income housing, but a decision isn't expected for months.

COMMENTS? DMassey@crainsnewyork.com

wcbstv.com: Queens Development Plans Threaten NYC Junkyards:

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Across the street from the parking lot where a new stadium for the New York Mets is going up, Daniel Sambucci’s auto salvage yard is a grease monkey’s paradise.

Thousands of car parts—axles, doors, transmissions, window regulators—are neatly shelved and tagged. Chassis are stacked three high.

“We keep it as good as we could keep it,” said Sambucci, 76, who started the business in 1951 and hoped to pass the business down to his grandson.

But if Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, it will become a paradise lost.

Sambucci’s scrap yard is one of 225 automotive businesses occupying a 60-acre chunk of Queens that would be redeveloped into office buildings, shops, apartments and a convention center under a plan that Bloomberg announced last month.

The area, known as Willets Point, would shed its existing businesses and the soil would be cleansed of decades of oil and gasoline spills before a new neighborhood with 5,500 housing units, 1.7 million square feet of retail and entertainment and 500,000 square feet of office space would be built from scratch.

“After a century of blight and neglect, the future of this area is very bright indeed,” Bloomberg said when he released the Willets Point master plan at the nearby Queens Museum of Art.

But shop owners say they don’t want to leave. They say that if Willets Point is an eyesore, it’s the city’s fault.

“They created the blight, now they’re going to use it to wipe out all these people,” said Michael Rikon, a lawyer who is advising Sambucci and other area business owners.

Much of Willets Point is indeed filthy. Body shops are housed in trailers and cinderblock sheds. There are no sidewalks or sewers. The streets flood when it rains.

Fans at Shea Stadium or the adjoining National Tennis Center—where the U.S. Open is played—might never notice the jumble of junkyards and chop shops. But the Mets’ new ballpark, opening in 2009, will be closer to them, right across the street. The Wilpon family that owns the team is following the redevelopment plans closely.

“We got along with Wilpon for years,” Sambucci said. “Now all of a sudden because he’s coming closer to our fence, they’re on us.”

There are about 250 businesses in the redevelopment area, most of them auto-related. There is one legal resident, Joseph Ardizzone, 74, and he does not want to leave either. “I don’t believe politicians have the right to give my property to their friends, whoever they may be,” he said.

Also known as the Iron Triangle, Willets Point has long been targeted for urban renewal, including by the legendary master builder Robert Moses. But business owners fought off previous efforts.

The current plan has been brewing for years. The city reached out to developers in 2004 with requests for expressions of interest, then sought formal proposals last year.

Following environmental reviews, the city will ask developers to submit revised plans in the spring of 2008. A developer or team of developers will be chosen in the summer of 2008, and construction on the multiyear project could start in 2009. The land would have to be purchased from some 65 individual owners.

The city has promised to help the existing businesses relocate and to provide job training and other assistance to the estimated 1,300 workers who make a living there. Bill Walsh, vice president for real estate development at the city’s Economic Development Corp., said a specific plan would be released this summer.

But Sambucci wonders where he could go and who would pay to move his inventory.

“What do I do with all this stuff?” he said, indicating some 240 cars and chassis. “Where do I put it?”

Sambucci works with his son, also Daniel, and had hoped to pass on the business to his grandson, Daniel as well.

“I don’t think they’re going to offer any relocation, even though they keep saying that,” said the middle Sambucci, who is 49. “I keep asking them ‘Where are you going to relocate me?’ And they go, ‘Well, we have land.’ ... What is it, a secret?”

Tom Angotti, a professor of urban planning at Hunter College who has studied Willets Point, said the city will refer business owners to other properties, “but it’s inadequate.”

“I would imagine they’re going to have trouble finding comparable space that’s affordable, especially with the real estate market the way it is,” he said.

At his news conference, Bloomberg said the city hoped to negotiate with Willets Point property owners and use eminent domain as a last resort. He bristled when a reporter mentioned Ardizzone, the lone official resident. He was not present at the news conference.

“Look, unfortunately, there will always be one person who objects to everything, but I don’t think anyone suggests that this society should stay back in the Stone Age and never move ahead,” Bloomberg said.

Some plans Bloomberg has championed during his five and a half years in office are moving forward, while others, notably the New York Jets’ proposed Manhattan stadium, have gone down to defeat.

Apart from the business owners and workers most directly affected, no groundswell of opposition to the Willets Point proposal has emerged.

The City Council will be asked at some point to rezone Willets Point from industrial to mixed use. Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who represents the area, said he would wait to see the business relocation plan before deciding how to vote.

Monserrate said there has to be some way of ensuring that the process is fair. “I really don’t know what that answer is,” he said.

Though they have tacked “Stop Eminent Domain Abuse” signs to their chain-link fence, the Sambuccis seem resigned to moving.

“We don’t want to leave here,” said the middle Sambucci. “But it looks like I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

His father summed up the situation. “They want housing and they want a convention center and they want people having coffee on the sidewalk looking at a stadium that has 70 or 80 games a year and is empty the rest of the time. That’s what they want.”